Ryan Reynolds is all over the news right now due to this weekend’s premiere of Deadpool, but the actor appears to be playing a far more understated role in the upcoming thriller Criminal, which debuted its first trailer this week.
The upcoming film casts Kevin Costner as a hardened death-row inmate who has the memories of a deceased CIA operative (Reynolds) implanted in his brain in order to facilitate the completion of an important mission that could avert a catastrophe. While Reynolds is glimpsed in the trailer, it appears that the film is putting Costner front and center in what looks to be an explosive adventure.
Directed by Ariel Vroman (The Iceman) from a script by The Rock screenwriters Douglas Cook and David Weisberg, Criminal also stars Gary Oldman (The Dark Knight), Tommy Lee Jones (Men in Black), and Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman), as well as Alice Eve (Star Trek Into Darkness) and Scott Adkins (The Bourne Ultimatum) in supporting roles.
In something of a weird coincidence, the film will be a reunion of sorts for Adkins and Reynolds, who both played Deadpool in 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine, with Reynolds handling the dialogue and much of the early scenes from the film and Adkins stepping in for several fight and stunt sequences. Given that Deadpool just arrived in theaters, it’s an amusing convergence of events for the actors.
Along the same lines, Criminal will also be the first collaboration between Costner, Oldman, and Jones since 1991’s JFK.
Although Costner has drifted away from more action-oriented roles in recent years, the 61-year-old Oscar winner occasionally still throws down on the screen in some intense, action-heavy roles, including last year’s 3 Days to Kill and the 2012 television miniseries Hatfields & McCoys.
Criminal is produced by Chris Bender, Kevin King, and J.C. Spink, along with executive producers Jason Bloom, Christa Campbell, and Lati Grobman.
The film is scheduled to hit theaters April 15.
